“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live”

Oscar Wilde

Many times triathletes are judged as selfish.  Lately I have been thinking a lot about this judgement.  Are we truly selfish?  It appears to those outside of our world that all we do is swim, bike, run, train, and race.  It quite possibly appears we do these things and have a negative impact on others in our lives.  I, myself, have been caught judging others and creating my story about other’s selfishness.  I have been called selfish.  But are we really pursuing our own interests without regard for others?  Are we being

self·ish  
 concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself: seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others

This past year I have been spending way too much time reading other people’s blogs.  Mostly triathletes and mostly triathletes with families.  While gnawing on this idea of athletes being selfish I started to note categories on my favorite blogs and put this short list together of some of them that made me question whether athletes are selfish or if it is just a perception we  have of ourselves and if others who are not athletes have as well:

Attachment Parenting
Family
Living Simply
Giving
Friends
Budgeting
Relationships

Is it possible we are the opposite of selfish?

Caring, Kind, Unselfish

In our endeavors to achieve personal goals are we actually having positive impact on those around us?   I started seeing the children of athletes who are taken on adventures and allowed the opportunity to explore and connect with nature.  When reading about kid’s sports activities there were many references to how parents organized their training schedules to attend events and how happy and proud these parents are of their children and how involved they are in their lives.  Spouses appear to be happy supporting their partners through their training and racing.  Friends were commenting about being inspired by our accomplishments.  They were motivated to try harder, do more, go longer, and were genuinely grateful for the impact we are having on the world.   Friends were supporting friends through tough times, truly creating intimate relationships with those around them.  Couples were speaking about creating budgets and living within those budgets.  It appeared more and more to me that these athletes and their significant others create their own rules and boundaries in regards to training, racing, and family.  More importantly, all of the athletes respected these rules and boundaries and organized their time and efforts to not only achieve their personal goals but to also support family goals and personal goals of others in their family.

So here’s my closing.  A lot of time is spent pursuing goals and, at times, I am positive it looks as though we are being selfish.  I challenge you to take a different perspective.  Look a little more closely behind the scenes at the preparation it takes to pursue these goals.  Take a look at the mom who wakes up at 4:30 in the morning to be in the pool at 5am so she can be home to get the kids breakfast and be there to send them off to school.  See the passion in a husband’s eyes as his wife crosses the finish line of a race and observe the pleasure he gets from seeing her succeed and being a huge part of that success.  See the sacrifice a parent happily makes to cheer her son on at his Saturday game.   Remember, the rules of engagement in any relationship are created by the participants in the relationship.  The only ones who have to play by those rules are the ones who agreed to play by them.